


Full Moon Council

by kuro



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro/pseuds/kuro
Summary: Tony Stark; genius, billionaire, fashionista, only surviving member of the Stark family, involuntary participant in vampire council meetings.Privileged in many things, there is one thing that he has never done: he has never met a werewolf...





	1. Three Days Before

**Author's Note:**

> I know, Halloween is already over, but here we go anyway. 
> 
> This story will be updated weekly, all through November, to get us all through the post-Halloween hole.

_They were on opposite sides. Necessarily so._

_It was natural law, common sense, something that even toddlers understood: vampires and werewolves did not mix._

_One might say this: vampires and werewolves both are creatures of the night, part of the living, breathing darkness clinging to sightless windows. As such, they are of a similar kind._

_One should never say such a thing to a vampire, or else be prepared for a very long, arduous debate. Vampires will say: we truly are creatures of the night. We dwell in darkness, and we are active only once the sun has set. While it is a general misconception that vampires will die when they are exposed to sunlight, that is all it is: a misconception. Vampires can very well wander under the sun without danger; only which self-respecting vampire would do that, when instead you can enjoy the eternal beauty of the night? The silvery moon, the dark shadows, the lonely footsteps in a deserted alley as the clock strikes midnight? To forego all that is well and truly a foolish notion. Vampires do not just live in the night. They enjoy it more than mortals can ever fathom._

_Werewolves, on the other hand... werewolves are different. It is, of course, true: they only show their true form under the light of the full moon. The night is their sanctuary, the realm where their animalistic nature emerges in the shape of their bodies. However, they are not truly night’s children. Instead, their eyes are directed towards the morning sun. When opportunity arises, they will stray around during the day, seeking the company of humans. Even worse, they pretend to be humans. It’s a pitiful sight._

_It was a commonly accepted truth: vampires and werewolves did not mix. Ever._

_And that was why Tony was so burningly curious._

* * *

 

“Tony,” Rhodey said, staring at Tony’s newest… experiment. “What in fury’s name is _that_?”

“It’s a machine, Rhodey. You should really know better by now,” Tony said absentmindedly from his perch on top of the machine, banging his wrench against a part that was refusing to cooperate. Merciful mother, this one was not going to work. Something was broken, but he couldn’t figure out exactly where the problem was. He would have to get a replacement.

“Well, what is it supposed to do?”

As usual, Rhodey was unsatisfied with vague answers and kept digging. He drew closer to the machine and carefully moved some parts, as if trying to figure out how they worked by touch alone.

“We’ll see about that once I’m finished.”

Tony climbed off the massive belly of the machine and dropped to the ground next to Rhodey.

“Does that mean you don’t know?” Rhodey asked, raising his eyebrows.

“No,” Tony said, dropping the unhelpful wrench back into his toolbox with a satisfying, dissonant clang. “It just means I don’t know how to make it work it just yet, and it’s vexing me.”

“Record this day for posterity! Tony Stark has admitted he doesn’t know how to fix something,” Rhodey intoned dramatically.

Tony gave him his signature bullshit smirk and walked over to the area of his workshop that had been dedicated to clean-up. He vanished behind the curtain and slipped out of his work clothes.

For a moment, he stared at the nice brass fittings in the clean-up area and then at his oil-streaked hands. Honestly, the furnishing was far too pretty for the treatment that it got down here in the workshop, but he hadn’t been able to resist going over the top when he installed them. There was something about having an actual proper bathroom as opposed to the provisional shower head he used to have. And truthfully, if there was one thing he could not be accused of was that he lacked a sense of extravagance. He surely did _not_ have this failing.

Shaking his head, he turned on the water and stood under the spray, scrubbing the worst of the dirt off his hands and arms. Once his skin was heated and the worst of the dirt was washed off, he raised his voice over the rushing of the water.

“I assume you aren’t here to admire my handiwork.”

“No,” came Rhodey’s voice from a distance, before it grew closer. “I’m here to remind you of your duties. You’re expected to appear at the Council meeting in three days, and just so it’s clear, neither Pepper nor I will let you skip.”

Tony grimaced. Frankly speaking, Council meetings were always a pain, they were capable of boring anyone to _death_ , and they always took _forever_. That was probably a side effect of literally having eternity at your disposal, he assumed. When you’ve lived for hundreds of years, you probably stop counting time at some point. Not that Tony fully understood; he was still too young to have outlived all humans of his generation. But unlike humans, vampires did not have to worry about heading towards death with advancing age. They would not die.  

Unless, of course, they were killed.

“Rhodey, why do you insist on torturing me?” Tony asked out loud. “You know I can’t stand these old farts.”

“That’s precisely why you need to go,” Rhodey insisted from behind the curtains. “You can’t just avoid them all the time, or they _will_ start working against you at some point.”

Rhodey was obviously right. The Council was headed by a bunch of stuffy old vampires whose humours had dried up a _long_ time ago, so they required to be shown proper deference every once in while. Failing to do so could result in uncomfortable consequences. They had lived for too long not to have learned how to be make others obey them in one way or another, or make them wish they hadn’t disobeyed. And Tony needed at least their indifference, if not their goodwill, so he could proceed with his business endeavors without the Council knocking on his door at the smallest sign of dissent.

“Fine,” Tony said after extended deliberation. “You got me. But if you leave me on my own even for a second, Rhodey, I swear I will make an ass of myself in front of the entire Council.”

“You really think I’ll give you that chance?” Rhodey asked, but he sounded distinctly satisfied. To be able to return to Pepper with a report of his success would do that to someone, Tony assumed. Disappointing Pepper was something they both preferred to avoid. Being in Pepper’s good graces, however, was something one definitely wanted.

Tony turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. Then he went over to the enormous wooden wardrobe he also kept down here in the workshop. The way up to his rooms and his official wardrobe was just too impractical, and he had long given up any pretense that anything like actual habitation was going up there. A stately manor it might be, but it was mostly representation and had little to do with his actual living arrangements.

He rifled through the wardrobe and picked out one of the nicer white shirts with excessive ruffles at the collar and the sleeves without hesitation. Then he added black pants, black boots, a black jacket with gleaming silver buttons, and blood red cravat.

He took a look in the mirrored door of the wardrobe. Wonderful. He looked dashing, irresistible with his untamed black hair in a large curl on his forehead. The perfect look for sealing an advantageous deal. No one would deny him anything, looking like this.

He gave his mirror image a toothy grin and strode out to where Rhodey was still waiting.

“Pick me up one hour after sunset,” he instructed Rhodey. “I’ll let you ride… one of the Ferrari 250 models?”

Rhodey grinned.

“Sure deal, _boss_.”

“I have to go and shake a replacement piece out of Giovanni now,” Tony said, gently ushering Rhodey towards the door of the workshop. “But you have my word to be on my best behaviour for this one. Please tell Pepper as much.”

“She will be very pleased to hear that. Tell me more about that machine in there next time, you crazy scientist.”

With those words, Rhodey gave Tony a smile and Tony’s shoulder a squeeze, and then he was off.

Tony sighed. He was never ready for a Council meeting. He _hated_ Council meetings. This was why he was only the pro-forma head of the family. But he did understand their reasoning, and he agreed. He had to go.

Well, he had three days to get ready. That was three days to find the most obnoxious outfit he could get away with wearing at the meeting. He had a brand to maintain, after all, and it wouldn’t do to disappoint anyone’s expectations.


	2. The Council

Truly, the Council meeting promised to be as trying as it was every time Tony was forced to attend. At the very least, Rhodey was both stuck to his side and in a very good mood. He had gotten to drive one of the excessively expensive sports cars in Tony’s collection on the way to the Council, and that never failed to improve his mood.

Tony quietly wondered about it, if he was honest. While perhaps not comparable to Tony’s inherited wealth amassed over centuries, by no means was Rhodey in a position where he was unable to afford one of antique cars he so loved if he wished to buy one. Still, he seemed unreasonably delighted to get to drive one of Tony’s cars whenever he got the chance. It must be something about the experience of driving an expensive car without the commitment that came with owning it, Tony figured. Quite a few of the cars in Tony’s garage had belonged to his father before him, and his father had taken joy in the possession of expensive things. Rhodey, however, was different. Tony had never seen this trait of possessiveness in him.

Before the meeting started, all participants convened in the large hall in front of the council room, trickling in through the ornate double doors in groups of twos and threes. Refreshments were served under the flickering candle lights of low-hanging chandeliers, the room filled with chatter and soft music. Tony observed the tableau for a few moments as he entered the hall. Everyone had donned their best dress, and wherever he looked, there was an abundance of fluttering silk and glittering diamonds, ornate dinner jackets and the glossy shine of patent leather shoes. Not all of the vampires here tonight could be counted to the upper echelon, but some of them belonged both to the richest and most influential people on the entire planet, and they carried themselves accordingly.

Tony braced himself and then stepped into the room. He observed the crowd, picking out all the higher Council members that he was expected to greet, and then those members that he actually _wanted_ to speak to. He walked up to a small group of older Council members and started his usual spiel: making painfully shallow conversation with people he had no interest in and no intent to know better while pretending that he really did. All the while, he put out his feelers to gather any particular information involving the businesses he dabbled in. It was an excercise in frustration, mostly; a lot of effort with very little reward. Vampires tended to hoard information like dragons hoarded treasure, greedy and loathe to give up even the tiniest piece of it. His only solace was Rhodey, who did indeed keep his promise and stayed at his side, rolling his eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of some Council members whenever nobody was looking.

Pepper was also in the crowd, as she always was, skillfully working the room at a distance from the two of them. She doubtlessly had her own goals tonight, and would make sure that they were achieved, so Tony did not try to approach her. If she wanted him there with her, she would have let him know it.

He had just parted from one of the elderly ladies that he actually liked, Lady Lovegood, who had an interest in one of his newer machines ( she was elderly only in numbers - after centuries, she still looked like she barely brushed forty) when the start of the council was finally announced. A little hesitantly, the whole assembly slowly moved towards the Council room, one after the other taking their respective places, reserved according to rank and family. Tony took his own seat in the inner circle, Rhodey just behind him, and looked around, noticing the absentees. As usual, the lower ranks were well-occupied, the outer circles climbing up the round wall of the Council room brimming with bustling figures. They were obviously hoping to cement their own standing and advance further. Among the highest ranks, however, attendance was distinctly spotty. Some of the oldest families didn’t bother come in person and sent representatives instead. He himself was guilty of that, Tony thought, as Pepper elegantly slid into the open seat next to him.

“Hello, beautiful,” he greeted her, complete with an extremely fake and smarmy smile.

Pepper pinched him, cruelly.

“Hello to you too,” she said. “It’s good you bothered to attend for once. I’m not paid for covering your ass.”

“I _would_ pay you a lot more if you did that, though,” Tony mused.

“No.”

He laughed. “Oh well. It’s always worth a try. One day you might come around.”

“There are many ways to make a lot more money with a lot less work,” she stated primly, making him have to hold in a loud guffaw.

“Thank you for your confidence, dearest.”

“I live to serve,” she replied gravely, but Tony did not miss the small tug in the corner of her mouth.

Unfortunately, that was to be the last amusing moment he was to have that night. The head of the Council started the usual welcoming procedure, and even after the first few minutes, Tony felt his attention slipping. Pepper next to him seemed unaffected, but he himself had a hard time staying awake and aware. He did not contribute much to the discussion, letting Pepper contribute on their behalf whenever necessary. He certainly would not try to undermine her status as the primary council member of the family. Everyone knew that he was Tony Stark, last remaining blood member of the Stark family, and that he was the one who made the ultimate decisions as such. But he had given up the actual leadership of the family a long time ago, and rightly so.

“There is no need to take such aggressive measures,” Pepper spoke up when the discussion turned to a long-time favourite in the council: shutting down human businesses trying to compete with old, long-established vampire conglomerates. “We are in the stronger position anyway.”

“Sir Stark.”

An older vampire sitting nearly at the centre turned towards Tony and addressed him directly. Tony cringed inwardly. It was Sir William Woodstroke, a senior member of one of the oldest families present in the council, and also one of the most unpleasant fellows Tony had the displeasure of being acquainted with.

“You know your father would not stand for this wishy-washy attitude,” Sir Woodstroke said. He was definitely one of these men whose humours had dried up centuries ago, and who hung on to life through spite rather than any actual enjoyment of it. Tony tried not to get overwhelmed by the irritation he could feel rising quickly.

“My father, as you can see, is not here,” he enunciated, not averting his eyes from Sir Woodstroke’s gaze for even a second.

Sir Woodstroke gave him a shrivelled up smile. “You were always such a soft boy, very much unlike your father. He would have handled this _properly_.”

“Again, Sir Woodstroke,” Tony said, gripping the armrest of his chair, “I have to remind you that my father has not been a member of this council for a long time. There is no use speculating what he would or would not have done. He is dead and gone.”

_Unlike you empty husks. Maybe you should take him as an example._

“Well,” Sir Woodstroke spoke up again after a beat of silence. “Now that we have heard Sir Stark’s own opinion, let us move on to the final decision.”

Pepper gently untangled his hand from the armrest where nobody could see it, but she did it without looking at him. He knew anyway, without looking at her. He could see some of the younger vampires in the lower ranks try to suppress their smirks. When he turned towards the center of the council again, Lady Lovegood sent him a good-natured wink.

He slowly relaxed back into his seat and tuned the rest of the discussion out. This was why he hated council meetings. Not a single one could pass without one of these shrivelled mummies mentioning his father, and how disappointed he would be in how Tony decided to lead the family.

As if he didn’t already know that full well.

* * *

“That old fart really loves to get you riled up,” Rhodey sighed as they walked out of the council chamber, once the board had finally taken pity on them and adjourned the meeting.

They walked through the hallways of the building, which was aggressively ostentatious lest someone forget that the rich and powerful gathered here. Tony stared at the paintings of former and present Council members as well as various configurations of Council heads hanging on the walls. Centuries of history collected here, and most of it felt terribly oppressing. Sir Woodstroke represented the worst parts of it. Not everything remained unchanged, but the Council had existed for so long, every alteration just took that much more effort, like an old, fat tomcat refusing to give up the warm seat on the kachelofen.

His father had tried to instill a sense of pride, of being a true heir to one of the major families in him, but in this, just as in many other things that concerned Tony, he had failed. Or rather, Tony had constantly managed to disappoint his father’s lofty expectations. And the one who had suffered the repercussions had been his mother.

He involuntarily clenched his jaw. Even now, after all these years, it hurt.

He’d been accused of wanting to burn down everything his family had worked for. But that was not true, even when his father refused to listen. He felt as if he’d suffocate, strangled by tradition and outdated expectations, when he only wanted to _improve_. There was so much that could be done better, if only someone actually cared to do it. And there were those that agreed with him.

Tony sighed a breath of relief once they passed the threshold of the mansion and the cold night air hit him, clearing his mind and calming him with a cool breeze in his hair. He looked up. They were lucky; dawn was not coming yet, and the sky was still completely dark. The only light came from the silvery white face of the moon hanging high up in the night sky.

“You can take the car home,” Tony said to Rhodey after a moment of contemplation. “I think I need some quiet now.”

Rhodey sent him a look that was difficult to fully decipher, but then he shrugged.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” Tony replied, already popping up his collar and stepping out into the night. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He heard Rhodey give a half-sigh, but by then he had already stepped over the liminal space between here and there. It didn’t matter exactly _where_ he went, he thought to himself, as long as he was provided a short moment of solitude.

That sounded perfect.


	3. Who Are You?

Wandering around in a cemetery in the middle of the night sounded terribly cliché, Tony mused as he passed between two old gravestones. But as far as clichés went, a love of cemeteries was one he could live with. Cemeteries, like crossroads, vacant buildings, churches or shrines, as well as many other places with certain special qualities, were liminal spaces, existing neither fully _here_ nor _there_ , bridging the gap in between. And as a logical consequence, they were also a preferred haunt of creatures that moved in between the _here_ and _there_. That, of course, included vampires.

There was no doubt that wandering around a moonlit cemetery covered in ivy and moss caused a very particular kind of excitement to all those creatures not fully anchored in the here and now. If Tony was entirely honest, there was something addictive about existing in two states at the same time. To be not-quite-removed from the physical world was both thrilling and calming at once.

He traced the barely legible name on one of the old gravestones slowly crumbling to dust. There was a grave that had carried his parents' names. Would he meet the same fate as them, or would he simply carry on through the centuries?

He thought of Sir Woodstroke. Everything had its time to die, he ruminated, sooner or later. In one way or another, Tony would surely die, eventually. The question was simply whether his body would die with him or not. Most of the time he found himself wishing that it would.

_Shhr._

He held completely still.

What had that sound been?

Remaining carefully quiet, he listened again. He could hear a strange, snuffling sound. Someone - something? - other than him was wandering around the cemetery at night. He would recognise another vampire, and whatever caused that noise, it certainly was not caused by a vampire. What could it be?

Without stirring a single blade of grass, Tony retreated into the shielding shadows and moved to higher ground, onto the ornate roof of a baroque mausoleum, until movement caught his eye. There, between a large tree and another row of gravestones, something moved. He looked closer. It was a large figure ambling along, oddly bowed for its rather large size. Larger than either vampire or human would be.

Tony held still for another moment.

It couldn’t be. He felt a shiver of excitement. Was it truly a werewolf? Tony looked up into the night sky, where the full moon gazed back at him with a pale, serene face. Oh, it could very well be.

Retreating back into the shadows, he carefully moved closer, close enough to fully observe the stranger.

“Who are you?” Tony asked, emerging from the shadows right under the large tree he’d seen from a distance, too curious to remember to be wary of strange creatures roaming the cemetery alone at night. (He was, after all, one of the strange creatures lurking in the dark, too.)

He stared at the figure, now much closer, and oh, he had been _right_. A werewolf it was, barely clothed, with a broad, hairy back and muscular arms and legs. The colouring of the fur all over the body was of a lighter shade than he would have expected a werewolf to be, but the claws and fangs on this creature spoke a clear language. They could undoubtedly tear a person to shreds. Truly they were predators. Pitiful predators, compared to vampires, but predators nonetheless.

One had, after all, managed to kill his father.

“Who are _you_?” the stranger asked back, quickly turning towards him with a mighty frown that looked misplaced on such animalistic a creature. A human expression on a beast. It was an odd contrast, to say the least. That, and the pants.

“I asked first,” Tony replied, pulling the surrounding shadows back around him. “If you want an answer, you answer my question first.”

The werewolf was silent for a few moments, the frown on his face deepening noticeably. Ah, and there was the growl, as well as the teeth. Such savagery, Tony thought. It was impudent for vampires to bare their teeth without an _actual_ intent to turn this into a real fight. You do not show your teeth unless you are ready to bite. Even children knew that. That’s where werewolves differed, he surmised. That one should not come as a surprise.  

“My name is Steve,” the creature said after an extended period of silence that was only broken by his low growl, his blue eyes glinting in defiance, despite his apparent submission to Tony’s demands.

Tony paused for a moment. That was a strangely… normal name for a werewolf. Definitely nothing he had expected. Well, to be honest, he didn't know what he had expected. Something unusual, prehaps, something that hinted towards his true nature.

Steve, the werewolf.

That didn't sound very impressive.

“Good boy,” Tony grinned, enjoying the badly suppressed wince of this… Steve. “My name is Anthony. And since you answered so generously, you shall be allowed to call me Tony.”

“Vampires, tch,” Steve spat. “You’re all the same.”

So he had been recognised. Not that he had tried to hide _his_ nature.

“Ah, and you werewolves are somehow not all fleabitten bedside rugs?” Tony asked, vanishing and reappearing a few meters further away. No fun in getting torn to shreds by these sharp claws, he imagined. Not that he would let himself get seriously hurt in a fight… but it would definitely hurt if he caught a claw or two, and he wasn’t nearly as self-destructive as Rhodey accused him of being. But maybe Rhodey would disagree, on grounds of consciously provoking a werewolf who already was in a bad enough mood, in the middle of a cemetery, on the night of a full moon.

“That’s what you’d like to think,” Steve said, wrinkling his nose. “Your ignorance truly marks you as one of your people.”

“Tell me then; what are you?”

With that, silence momentarily returned to the cemetery. The werewolf stared at him with strangely blue eyes, but he did not reply.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Tony asked after a moment. “I sure hope you aren’t planning to dig up any corpses. That’s a bit much, even for a doggo like you.”

“Who would do that?” the werewolf growled, trashing his tail back and forth in apparent agitation. “That’s disgusting!”

“Exactly what I’m saying,” Tony replied. He studied the appearance of this Steve for a moment, before he deemed the situation probably safe enough to dare come a little closer again. Three steps should be far enough. “So, tell me. What is a werewolf doing, all alone in a cemetery, on the night of such a beautiful full moon? Shouldn’t you be out in the forest, frolicking with your own kind?”

He empathically waved at the silvery moon hanging in the sky.

The werewolf, Steve, sniffed and turned his head this way and that, his wary eyes never leaving Tony's figure. Luckily for Tony, it didn't look like Steve was planning to eat him. But it definitely looked like he was being dissected by this foreign creature, and he wondered what exactly a werewolf was able to read in his appearence and mannerisms. He realised he couldn't remember what kind of unusual abilities werewolfs did have. Smell, probably. Strength, certainly. But other than that, he had no idea. 

He wondered if Steve had met many vampires. If he knew what abilities _vampires_ had. 

“I wanted to be left alone,” Steve said, eventually.

“Ah, so we are both out of luck. That was just what I had been planning to do.”

They regarded each other silently for several long moments. This werewolf truly looked impressive, Tony thought absent-mindedly. All those bulging muscles and razor-sharp claws. Truly, the many scary stories that he had heard as a child had not been as exaggerated as he had thought. That a normal-looking human could turn into _this_ under the light of the full moon somehow mistified him. The moon brought out their true nature. Tony wondered about that. Was the transformation painful? It looked like it would be painful, a man turning into such a large beast.

But this werewolf, for all its outward viciousness, did not _seem_ to be particularly vicious. And it seemed silly to start a fight with another species, on this night of all nights, when he just came from a battle with his own people. Or the dried remains of what constituted his own people. He found them just as ignorant as this werewolf probably did.

_Beasts_ , he thought to himself, and closed his eyes for a moment.

Then he opened them again, and looked straight into these piercing blue eyes.

“How about that,” he said brightly. “Care to share your solitude,” he waved at the general surrounding cemetery, “with me?”


	4. See You

Steve tilted his head at Tony, his ears flopping over almost adorably puppy-like. Tony couldn’t blame him for looking confused. That had been a rather sudden, most likely inexplicable change in attitude, he surmised, but he had never been known to be predictable. If he was honest, he _hated_ being predictable. And he certainly wasn’t going to start now.

Steve continued to stare at Tony, until Tony felt the urge to shake off his probing gaze. The extended silence had grown, for his taste, excessively uncomfortable. He— it was a reasonable suggestion, wasn’t it?

“Fine,” Steve eventually spoke up. “But keep your nose out of my business.”

With that, he pointed and waved his snout towards the other end of the cemetery, as if to shoo Tony away. The place was expansive, after all, more like a park than anything. Trees grew in abundance, and although the cemetery was quite old (on a human scale, at least), there were still empty stretches of grass in between graves and mausoleums, places that had, for one reason or another, never been used for their intended purpose. The oldest part of the cemetery was partitioned off with what probably used to me the original cemetery wall, before and expansion due to an increase in local population. Where more people live, more people die, and all these people needed a place to rest. So even with several other people roaming around the grounds of the cemetery, it was easy enough to avoid them without much effort.

“That’s a pity though,” Tony replied, putting on his best innocent and unthreatening smile, “seeing as I’m burningly curious.”

The werewolf glared at him, the rather hairy frown emerging once more.

“Don’t start growling at me, now,” Tony said in his most reassuring tone of voice. “I’ve never actually _met_ a werewolf, so you can’t blame me for my interest.”

He paused for a moment.

“ _Scientific_ interest,” he corrected himself. “It’s not like they are producing documentaries about you over at BBC Earth.”

Steve shook his head and turned away. “We change forms under the full moon. Other than that, we’re normal people.”

With that said, he walked away, his desire to continue the conversation apparently gone.

Tony, obviously, followed him like a curious cat. Yes, he knew, curiosity killed the cat.

But satisfaction did bring it back, and that calling, he truly could never resist.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” he reminded Steve. “I am not normal people, I’m a vampire. I don’t know what normal people _do_.”

He popped out of the shadows right next to Steve. “Is it rude to ask if I can touch your fur? In my defense, it looks very soft and touchable.”

Steve stared down at him (Tony wasn’t sure if this man was just huge or if the transformation made him significantly bigger), pinning him with his glittering blue eyes. Finding himself caught, Tony was unable to look away. He wondered if all werewolves had unusual eye colours or if that was a specifically Steve thing.

“Fine, do it,” Steve growled, bristling his fur before relaxing. “Satisfy your _curiosity_.”

“Oh, thank you!” Tony exclaimed and reached out to carefully touch one arm. A short, informal brush, curious, explorative, but not too intimate.

“Oh,” he breathed, delighted to find the fur just as warm and soft as he’d envisioned. Of course, it didn’t have the incomparable softness of the coat of a cat, but it also wasn’t… boar bristles. He petted the fur again, this time more confident in his actions. For a moment, he got lost in the sensation of fur moving against his fingers, tracing the shape of a body somehow both familiar and foreign at the same time. The shape was still mostly humanoid, but the fur made the touch feel very different.

When he returned to reality, he noticed just how close he had moved in, and how intimately he was currently touching the form of a complete stranger. He had moved on from arm to chest and shoulders, an exploratory touch that was probably intimate enough to suggest lovers rather than even close friends. He drew a step back, feeling a hot blush spreading over his face.

How unsightly, to become engrossed into something so fully and completely, especially when the something in question was a total stranger.

Steve gave him a doggy-laugh, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in apparent enjoyment. It should have looked odd on a large beast like him, but somehow, it did not.

So werewolfs could be silly, Tony thought to himself, watching Steve in fascination. He should take note of that. 

“You’re a strange one, aren’t you.”

Tony shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess. You’re not the first to say that.”

It was true, after all; his father had never neglected any opportunity to remind him of it. Even his friends told him sometimes.

“Well, now that you’ve had your once-in-a-lifetime chance to pet a werewolf, how do you feel?”

“Very satisfied, ten out of ten, would do again” Tony couldn’t help but answer, and he could hear the smugness in his own voice.

Steve actually laughed at that, fangs glinting in the silver moonlight.

Tony was mesmerized.

“Not just a fleabitten bedside rug, then?” Steve asked.

“I never actually thought that,” Tony sheepishly confessed. “And please don’t compare me with all these old, dried up mummies that are my peers either. For one, I look much fresher.”

He batted his eyelashes at Steve. He wasn’t sure what effect vampires had on werewolves, but normal humans, at least, had a hard time resisting the pull of attraction that vampires generally caused in them. Hypnotise your victim before you swallow it whole. Well, not really, but it was a useful strategy to avoid unnecessary confrontations, both from the victim and from others trying to ‘save’ them. No one wanted a messy table of food.

“You do look like a stereotypical vampire,” Steve commented, letting his eyes wander over Tony’s dramatic black cape and the excessive frills at his throat.

“I have to maintain a brand.”

Tony twirled around and snapped his cape into place. He had worn the black cape with the red silky lining on purpose tonight, because it was the most obnoxiously stereotypical vampiresque garment that one could think of. It never failed to rankle older, ‘respectable’ Council members, and it never failed to catch the attention of the rest.

“If you want to know, we didn’t actually start this trend,” Tony explained. “That was all humans. They’re foolish, but they sure do have a good sense of how to make an impression. What’s not to love about a tacky cape?”

“So… vampires don’t _actually_ look like that?”

“Oh no,” Tony laughed. “Most of them look like rich old fucks that don’t know what to do with their immense masses of fortune. Did you really think we sneak into dark bedrooms at night dressed like a second-rate actor?”

Steve looked more and more confused.

“Then why are you dressed like that?”

“I told you,” Tony replied, holding his cape in front of his face so that only his eyes were visible, flashing them into the dark. “To maintain a brand.”

“And your brand is… overly rich, eccentric vampire that ironically dresses like pop culture Dracula as a joke?”

“Aren’t you a _smart_ doggy,” Tony praised.

Steve’s nose twitched.

“No honestly, you got the point faster than most of the others,” Tony added. “It started as a joke between me and a friend of mine. In the end, it turned out to be a business advantage. Funny story, that one. But then I would be talking about me all the time, and honestly, I’d much rather hear more about _you_.”

Steve shook his head. “I told you, apart from the fur, I’m just a normal guy.”

“So you… what, do your nine to five everyday, family with five kids, white picket fence and dog, that kind of thing?”

“I’m actually an artist,” Steve replied. “No family, no kids, no white picket fence, and no dog.”

“What a pity,” Tony hummed. “I’d already imagined some cute wolf cubs rolling over the carpet in the living room. That’s disappointing.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “We have the same issues as everyone else. Sometimes relationships don’t work out.”

Tony was just about to reply, _So there was a white picket fence somewhere in these plans, then_ , when Steve suddenly turned his head, and stared into the distance.

“Ah.”

Tony looked too, and noticed the first sliver of dawn at the horizon, slowly taking over the night sky. The night had been long, and morning was approaching fast.

“It’s time for me to leave, then.”

“Me too,” Steve replied. “It won’t be long until I turn back now.”

Tony looked up at Steve for a moment, taking in his form, the large jaws and the broad shoulders, the light colour of his fur. The unusual colour of his eyes. 

Deep inside him, he felt a pull he didn’t understand. He didn’t want to leave just yet, he wanted to stay here just a little bit longer. Just a few minutes more. Hear more about Steve the artist and his thwarted plans of a white picket fence, five children, and a dog. But morning was almost here, and the sun would be up all too soon. And as everybody knew, no self-respecting vampire would dawdle about during the daytime. It was time to return to the blessed darkness of his home.

“It was… nice to meet you,” he said lamely. The words felt lacking, unable to express his true feelings. “Thank you for letting me pet you.”

Steve snickered.

“I don’t let just any vampire pet me. So that was a special privilege.”

“I feel honoured.”

Tony smiled up at this very strange werewolf for a moment. There were so many things he still wanted to know.

“See you around,” he said.

“Yeah, see you,” Steve replied.

But it wasn’t going to be, Tony knew. There was no chance that they would accidentally meet anywhere. They were from entirely different worlds. Even more so, Tony might not even recognise Steve once he returned into human form. He could pass him in the streets and be none the wiser - if Tony every used streets, that was.

“Bye,” he said, quiet and hesitant as the step he took back into the shadows just as the first tendrils of the morning sun breached the horizon. The next moment, he was home. The graveyard, its trees and mausoleums were gone, replaced with expensive furniture and unbreachable darkness.

Steve was gone. It was an entirely foreign sensation.

Tony sighed and looked at the familiar and yet foreign surroundings of his home now. This Council meeting had definitely brought him more trouble than expected.

Sure that he would be unable to sleep even if he tried, he turned not towards the door of his bedroom, but headed straight for the workshop instead. His hands felt restless, and his mind was all over the place. He might as well make use of that in a productive manner.


	5. You, Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to unforeseen circumstances, I've decided to split the last planned chapter and add an epilogue? Ehe. <3 Sorry about that.

_Some time later…_

“Curse‒ this‒ thing‒” Tony wheezed, pulling at the one part of the machine that was still not working properly. He had spent all day in the workshop, and despite all his tinkering, he couldn’t make this one part function. _He_ of all people was unable to make it work. “Is Giovanni taking me for a fool? He’ll‒ regret‒ it.”

With a screeching noise, the broken part finally disengaged from the machine, and Tony tumbled to the ground, part still in hand.

“Oof,” he grunted. He looked at the broken part in his hand, and then threw it into the next convenient wall. “Giovanni, prepare yourself. I’ll rain fire and brimstone on you if you pull that on me again.”

He got up and stalked into the direction of the shower, ready to don his battle gear. He would shake a replacement part out of Giovanni one way or another.

* * *

 

When Tony entered the Giovanni’s shop, he immediately noticed that it wasn’t empty as usual. Giovanni himself was human (although his connection to humanity was somewhat tenuous, Tony felt), so Giovanni’s shop did business both with humans and vampires. Necessarily, it had long opening hours to accomodate the needs of this diverse clientele. But as far as _humans_ knew, the shop had long closed, and no human customer should still be in the shop at this late hour. In addition, Giovanni did not employ any assistants during the night. His late night customers tended to be notoriously picky about their interactions, and most of them refused to do business with anyone other than the proprietor himself. What a disgrace that would be, a centuries-old vampire served by a measly part-timer. But such were vampires. 

In any case, if the two customers in the shop had been vampires, Tony would have recognised them immediately. But whoever was in the shop when Tony arrived was definitely no vampire. And that was highly unusual.

Instead of making a dramatic entrance like he had planned originally (he was angry and needed to vent), Tony thought it more prudent to wait in the shadows, not drawing attention to his presence. Giovanni, for all his other unusual skills, wouldn’t notice his arrival anyway. So instead of making himself known, he listened to the conversation between Giovanni and the two customers currently standing in front of one of the work benches.

“I am very sorry, but I am unable to provide such services here,” Giovanni was explaining to them. He looked unusually self-conscious, a trait Tony had rarely seen on him. “The materials needed, I am able to provide. But the work required… that is a highly unusual demand. You should go to whoever built this in the first place. I am quite certain that it will be difficult to find anyone else with the skill to properly repair or replace this.”

When Giovanni had mentioned ‘whoever built this in the first place’, one of the two men standing in front of him had scoffed impatiently. A bad deal in the past, perhaps? Tony moved to a different position, trying to figure out what it was that the two customers wanted repaired. As he moved, he noticed that the man who had scoffed just before, a man with dark hair and a broad back, seemed to have only one arm. In the place where his left shoulder should be, his t-shirt hung down limply. On the work bank in front of Giovanni, however, lay a silvery glittering metal arm. A prosthesis? It looked like it. It looked very cutting-edge, but even then, Giovanni had the skill to be able to repair a prosthesis, simple or complicated, in his sleep.

Was there a specific reason why he refused the repair? Tony couldn’t help but be interested.

“There must be some way to repair it,” the other customer insisted. This one sported blond hair and was just as broad as the other one, although slightly taller. Tony felt reminded of somebody, although he was unable to pinpoint who exactly it was. Had they met somewhere before? He should be able to remember; he didn’t have all too many occasions to meet anyone that was not a vampire.

“I can repair _this_ ,” Giovanni replied, tapping the metal arm. “But when I touch this arm, I can guarantee you that all additional properties will be lost. You will not be able to use it for anything else.”

Intrigued, Tony stealthily moved closer. So the arm wasn’t just a simple prosthesis, but apparently something more than that. Prosthetics wasn’t his field of specialty, but a prosthesis with special properties sounded intriguing. What unusual features could one possibly want to add to a prosthesis?

When he was close enough, he noticed two things: First, that the prosthesis had a transformation rune engraved in it right below the shoulder. He had never seen something like that before, and now that he thought about it, he found such an application very useful. A transformation rune could mean a myriad different adaptations for a prosthesis. However, he would have to think about all these doubtlessly very interesting implications of rune use in prosthetics a little later. There was a second thing that Tony noticed, just after the first: When he had moved close enough to clearly see the prosthetic arm on the work bank, the blonde customer abruptly turned around and stared straight into the shadows where Tony was standing.

But there was no possibility that this man could see Tony. Any normal person shouldn’t be able to see him while he hadn’t yet revealed himself. In the shadows, he should be completely undetectable to anyone but a vampire skilled at detection and shadow penetration. The movement was so sudden and unexpected, Tony froze to a complete standstill, tensely looking at the blonde man, who stared back at him without the slightest hint of hesitation. As if he could _actually_ see him.

The other customer, the man that whose arm was currently lying on the table, noticed his companion’s sudden alertness and sent him a worried gaze.

“Anthony?”

Tony, if possible, stilled even more, and so did everyone else.

It couldn’t possibly be?

No, it was impossible.

But while the voice sounded different, spoken with a human mouth, Tony knew anyway. There was no mistaking it.

“I thought I had given you permission to use ‘Tony’ instead of Anthony,” he found himself saying, letting the shadows around him withdraw without a second thought. “That’s a privilege not everybody gets. You should make use of it.”

He would never have expected to meet Steve here, in Giovanni’s shop, of all places. Or perhaps, that wasn’t quite the right way to put it. The truth was that he’d been fully prepared to never cross paths with Steve ever again, to see their chance meeting as nothing more than a strange blip on the radar of his life ‒ impossibly bright one second, gone the next. Such was his luck, usually. The more you wanted for something to happen, the more fate conspired against you. So he hadn’t entertained the possibility of meeting Steve again. He had carefully avoided thinking about what he’d say should they ever run into each other again, and he had carefully avoided any mention of their meeting in that moonlit cemetery to either Pepper or Rhodey.

He was, in short, completely blindsided by their reunion.

In want of anything else, he grabbed onto the first thing that he could think of: the actual reason why he had come here tonight.

He turned towards Giovanni and said, “Don’t tell me you’re also trying to sell them your shoddy handiwork.”

Giovanni, always mindful of every opportunity to strike a good bargain and noticing the first hint of danger, immediately paled. His attitude turned from distant politeness to subservient in a matter of moments.

“Sir Stark, I am so sorry to hear you are not pleased with my services. Was there something wrong with your last delivery?”

Giovanni was not dumb, and knew it was better for him not to play cat and mouse with a vampire. He’d been working for vampires for long enough to know that he would inevitably end up on the losing side of that game.

_Good for him_ , Tony thought, _I’m really not in the mood to cluck back and forth like a coop full of chickens tonight._

He took out the broken machine part that had been causing him nothing but troubles, and dropped it right in front of Giovanni’s feet.

“Give me one that works,” he said imperviously.

Giovanni stared at the broken part for a moment, then looked up at Tony, and then hastened to say, “Of course I will, Sir Stark. Immediately. One moment, I will fetch one right this moment.”

And without another look back at the other two customers still standing in his shop, he strode through the room and vanished in the storage as quick as a shadow.

There was a pronounced moment of silence. Steve was looking at Tony intently, while Tony was trying not to look at Steve. Oh god, he could not look at Steve, but his eyes kept wandering over to him anyway. Steve’s companion, the man with the prosthetic arm, kept looking back and forth between the two of them, apparently trying to figure out what was happening and not understanding any of it.

“You know him?” he asked Steve, nodding towards Tony.

“Yes,” Steve said, stiffly. “We’ve… met. Before.”


	6. Premonition

Giovanni’s store, in a sense, was a liminal space, catering to a very specific but also diverse clientele from two entirely different backgrounds – humans and vampires. He connected opposites that weren’t really meant to be connected, and so was in the unique position of having insight into things that usually remained hidden. He had access to places few people ever did get more than momentary glimpse of.

If anybody asked Tony’s opinion about the shop’s proprietor, Giovanni, he would have a hard time answering. Giovanni surely was excellent at what he did. They had known each other for a long time, and were on friendly terms, but Tony would never describe him as a friend. He wasn’t even sure he could say that he particularly liked this man. But the two had, without a doubt, a good professional relationship, and Tony did like coming to Giovanni’s shop very much. The cluttered shelves, the halfway finished projects, the rare materials and objects that were difficult to source, all of it gave this place a particular atmosphere. Being here always made him feel inspired, as if visiting suddenly allowed him to see new possibilities in his own work he hadn’t thought of yet.

And now, Steve had somehow appeared in this very space.

It was an odd sensation. Here was a person he didn’t really know at all, in a space that he was entirely familiar with, and he didn’t know what to do. Why did this bother him at all?

“I didn’t expect to meet you here,” Tony found himself saying, instead of the myriad of other things he could have said. Something like _Nice to meet you again._  

Steve shrugged, folding into himself a little, before straightening himself up again. Tony had enough time to notice that yes, the human version of Steve wasn’t quite as big as his other, more beastly form, but he definitely had the advantage of height, size _and_ weight over Tony. When Steve stood in front of him in his full height, Tony couldn’t help but respond in kind, his spine automatically stretching to match his opponent’s pose. And when he looked up, into a face that wasn’t quite familiar, he realised that he had been right: Steve’s eyes were still the same unusual colour they’d had when they had met back there at the cemetery.

“It’s not a place that I’d usually visit,”Steve explained, his eyes sweeping over the various tools and machines in the room, coming to rest on the broken part that Tony had dropped in front of Giovanni a few moments ago. “Bucky’s arm broke, and there’s hardly any person that can repair something like that.”

“Can I see?”

He stepped closer to Steve, expecting him to step back and make room for Tony at the work bank. But Steve stayed exactly where he was, until Tony nearly bumped into him, coming to a halt right in front of Steve, their bodies nearly touching. He could feel the warmth emanating from Steve’s body.

Tony looked up at Steve, now having to tilt his head the smallest amount. Steve definitely _was_ big, built larger than Tony himself; that hadn’t just been the transformation. And those eyes, if anything, were more intense than before. There was truly no doubt: this _was_ Steve. His mind, somehow, refused to compute that.

Tony looked up into these cerulean eyes.

“Hi,” he said, a little breathlessly.

“Hi,” Steve answered. “It’s good to see you again.”

The other man, Steve’s friend who apparently was named Bucky, made a noise somewhere in the background that sounded suspiciously like he was gagging. But Tony currently didn’t have any attention left to share, apart from the passing thought that Bucky was a _truly_ unfortunate name.

This was _Steve_.

After a moment, he remembered his original intention and peeled his eyes off Steve. There it was, the thing that had brought them back together, looking simultaneously innocent and dangerous lying on the work bank. A metal prosthesis, quite obviously built to be sturdy and durable enough to withstand a beating, with plates that would doubtlessly shift to accomodate to the natural movements of an arm. And there, just off the shoulder of the arm, was the rune that had been inscribed by the original creator. It surely made sense now. If Steve was a werewolf, his friend Bucky must be one too. And unless he wanted to lose his arm during the transformation, the arm needed to transform with him.

It was something not entirely unheard of, but nevertheless feature that required a certain amount of skill to successfully implement. Whoever the original creator of this arm was had been someone who really understood his craft, Tony had no doubt about that. It certainly hadn’t been a human, since most humans had trouble when it came to producing powerful runes. Giovanni was the best example for that. Skilled in what he did, he certainly would be capable of repairing the arm itself, but the effect of the rune would be lost and couldn’t be replicated by him. In his own mind, Tony wondered what could prevent Bucky from getting repairs from the person who had built it in the first place. Had they died?

That wouldn’t make too much sense, though. If anything, the craftsmanship seemed surprisingly familiar to Tony. If pressured, he would even say that this arm looked suspiciously close to vampire craftsmanship. But what vampire would build a prosthesis for a werewolf?

He carefully lifted the arm, figuring out how it was attached to the body, how it moved, how it was supposed to change form. He wasn’t wrong. This all looked extremely familiar to him.

“If you let me have it for a bit,” he said to Bucky, moving the arm in its original position and laying it back onto the work bank, “I might be able to do something about it. I’m relatively confident I can return it to working condition.”

Bucky didn’t look too impressed at his offer, and furrowed his brows. “You think you can repair it? On what authority?”

“Oh, I’m simply one of the best engineers you will find on this entire planet,” Tony returned, suppressing his urge to sneer at the werewolf, “but other than that, none.”

He wasn’t a complete snob, but he did have his pride when it came to his technical skills.

Bucky huffed derisively, but did not object.

“Let him have it, Bucky,” Steve spoke up, looking at his friend. “I trust him.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say ‘And that is supposed to convince me?’

But then he turned back towards Tony and studied him, as if trying to take him apart and take a look at his insides right there and then.

Tony wondered if he was always this intense. Perhaps someone should tell him not to do that.

“Well, it’s useless as it is right now, anyway,” Bucky said, shrugging is currently only functional shoulder. “Water off my back. If you can actually make it work, all the better.”

Steve nudged Bucky slightly but while doing so, he smiled faintly.

Tony wondered what the relationship between the two was. They seemed to be very familiar with each other, as if they had known each other a long time. A little bit like him and Rhodey, perhaps. Although Tony would strongly refute that anybody was like him and Rhodey. Nobody, absolutely nobody, could equal their friendship.

“How can we reach you?” Steve asked, returning his own attention back to Tony. “Should we come pick up the arm once you’ve finished?”

Tony quickly abandoned his musings about friendship and returned to the real world, telling Steve  his address. Steve, however, looked at him with apparent confusion.

“That’s far from here, isn’t it?”

“It’s just a moment’s travel. Space is an overrated construct,” Tony replied. Then he paused.

_Oh_ , Tony thought. _Right. That._

“Don’t tell me werewolves have to actually _walk_ distances?”

“Uh, yes we do?” Bucky grunted. He jerked his arm as if he wanted to cross his arms but then remembered that he was currently only having one arm at his disposal. His furrow deepend. “What the hell is it with vampires, can they not do at least one thing _normally_?”

“Oh,” Tony exclaimed. “I never considered that. Of course! You’re normally human. You don’t live in the night like we do.”

Bucky clearly bristled at his words, but didn’t actually bother to start an argument about it.

“Oh no, I never actually considered that. Space is _a thing_ for you,” Tony continued. “I can bring it to you, if you’d prefer? I can go everywhere.”

Strangely enough, it almost looked like Steve was smiling. What exactly was so amusing, Tony wasn’t sure, because Bucky, unlike Steve, seemed to be the very antithesis of amused. On the contrary, his frown was only getting worse.

“No,” Steve replied, slowly. “We’ll come. I think I’d like to see your workshop.”

Tony was just about to reply (with what would have most likely been something terribly embarrassing) when Giovanni finally returned from the storage, a new machine part in his hand. He kept on apologising profusely while he handed it over to Tony, while Tony kept trying to wave it off. His anger had completely disappeared by now. His mind was preoccupied with something entirely different right this moment, and the machine part could definitely wait. Unfortunately, Giovanni hardly let him get a word in edgeways, falling over himself with apologies.

After he had finally suitably (by his assessment) reassured Tony that this part was _absolutely_ going to work perfectly, the moment for Tony to reply to Steve had long passed. Tony looked at Steve, and – this really was Steve.

As embarrassing as it was to admit such a thing, he was drawn in by Steve’s mere presence, automatically leaning in, trying to get a little closer.

“Oh.”

Giovanni had apparently just now realised that the two customers with the unusual prosthetics request were still in the room, waiting for him, and that he had left them standing there without so much as a by-your-leave. He immediately turned apologetic again, although this time, it was distinctly more formal and less groveling.

“I am very sorry sirs, but I truly think I am unable to help you.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky replied, in a manner that distinctly spelled that he didn’t think it was _fine_. He nodded towards Tony. “He’s going to help us.”  
Giovanni looked at Tony with an expression of surprise on his face.

“Sir, are you sure?”

Tony knew that it wasn’t that Giovanni doubted his abilities. Oh no, Giovanni was unable to hold a candle to him. It was only that Tony was usually very particular about what he used these abilities for, and he could afford to be that way because he was _that good_. And due to his skills, his time usually cost an enormous amount of money. His work wasn’t something the average person could afford just like that.

Unless, of course, Tony decided that he wanted to do it.

“Yes,” Tony answered. “We are… acquainted.”

Lucky for him, Giovanni didn’t question his motives any further, but simply acquiesced, even though he still looked somewhat troubled.

After a short exchange, Tony accepted both the new part of his machine as well as Bucky’s arm to take back home with him. He made sure to tell Bucky when he was to come by to take some measurements and make sure the connections of the prosthesis worked properly. He made sure to ask the usual questions, to get a lay of the land, so to speak. Then, far too quickly, they were all ready to leave, finished with their business - and Giovanni looked as if he was glad about the prospect of having all three out of his shop.

It was only a matter of saying goodbye, and Tony hesitated to do so when he turned to Steve.

He stood there and it occurred to him in that moment what he’d done, and what he was going to do. What an immense act it was, to reach out and bridge a chasm so large and deep, slowly dug by centuries of prejudices. How foolish it was to want that.

They were on opposite sides. Necessarily so.

It struck him, for the very first time, what he was really doing here.

He had always been curious, more than was good for him. His parents’ death should have turned him from that path forever, unwilling to spare it a second glance. But oh no, of course he wasn’t just _curious_.

If only it had been something as simple as curiosity, or an urge to dip his toes in more exciting waters for a little, before returning to safer shores.

Oh no. That could be forgiven.

This was nothing to forgive.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, finally. It sounded terrible to his own ears, like the ugly croak of an old crow.

Steve looked at him for a moment, and then he reached out and took Tony’s hand in his. It wasn’t a handshake; no, he just held it in his own for a moment, all too gently.

The hand was warm, with the tiniest bit of roughness, and so different from the sensation of fur moving against his skin that a spark travelled through Tony’s arm like lightning’s strike. There was an uncomfortable squeeze in the area where his heart was, and he lost his breath.

Of course he knew what he was doing.

“I’ll see you soon,” Steve said, and then he let go, and Tony’s hand was cold.

The next moment, Tony was embraced by the familiar darkness of his own home.

For once, however, the darkness provided no solace. No, the darkness only felt stifling now, the silence oppressive.

He wondered how he should apologise to Pepper and Rhodey, because apologise he would have to.

 

He was going to have his heart broken.

And he would love every minute of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Tony understand that an angry vampire frightens the fuck out of Giovanni? No, no he does not.


	7. Epilogue

_They were on opposite sides. Necessarily so._

_It was natural law, common sense, something that even toddlers understood: vampires and werewolves did not mix. And when they did, nothing good would come of it._

_That was the truth every vampire knew: That nothing good would come of it. The last time a vampire had broken this taboo, the Division had happened. The Division, that terrible event that had been a violent strike of lightning, leaving behind scorched earth._

_The elder vampires refused to speak about the events that had lead to the Division, and their anger still burned a long time after. It had been, after all, a terrible loss for them. The humiliation was all too bitter, and they could not forget. Their resentment lingered on, just as their lives lingered on, in the shadows, in the hidden corners of their memories. They did not speak of the Division, and the younger generations of vampires only ever heard of it in whispers. And yet, the imposing presence of the Division, of the one that had caused it, was all the more evident as it was expressed in sepulchral silence._

_Those forever outed from vampire society – their existence had irreversibly shaped it._

_*_

_They were on opposite sides. Necessarily so._

_It was natural law, common sense, something that even toddlers understood: vampires and werewolves did not mix._

_But sometimes, when one finds the courage to reach out, such an action will not lead to chaos and war, but allows for new opportunities to grow. To the werewolves, the Division had been proven to be a boon. Faced with a conflict, they had made a decision; the decision not to stand by and watch, but to take a side. And when the last bridge had been burnt and the split a fact rather than a possibility, they had indeed reached out. When the conflict over power and decision-making drove a wedge between those who had formerly been brothers and sisters, they had helped those that had needed them most in that moment._

_Perhaps they had not planned it. But their decision altered society and brought it on a better path. By reaching out to the vampires, they had created a society that was shaped by mutual acceptance and proved wrong what everybody had assumed right: vampires and werewolf did, indeed, mix very well._

_*_

_This is not that story, however. Not a story of politics and rebellion, not one of conflict and, eventually, heroes._

_This is a story of how two people fell in love._

_All that happened after that, well, that is a story for another time._

_Good night._

_._

_._

_._

“Steve?” Tony asked, emerging in the door frame of the drawing room. “What are you doing?”

Steve looked up from the notebook he had been poring over and smiled at Tony. Dressed in silken pyjamas and a dressing gown, he looked more flamboyant than ever, leaning his hip on the door frame. But Steve, if he was honest, wouldn’t ever want it any other way.

“Nothing,” he replied easily. “Just reminiscing.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “That makes you sound like an old man, and not in a good way.”

“Maybe I am an old man,” Steve said, laughing. “I sometimes sure feel like it.”

“Don’t say such things, Steve. That’s not true.”

With a dissatisfied expression on his face, Tony stepped closer. He kept moving until he was close enough to wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulder, and bow down to kiss the crown of Steve’s head.

“You’d better come to bed with me. I’m cold.”

“When aren’t you cold,” Steve complained,  “with those ridiculously thin silken pyjamas of yours.”

But despite his complaints, he was already closing his notebook, careful not to wrinkle the many documents stuck in between its pages, and then stowed it away in his desk.

Tony stepped back just long enough to let Steve stand up, then he moved close to Steve once again, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist. A leech he might be, but clearly not an unwelcome one, since Steve kissed him back just as intently. There was something heady about kissing Tony, something Steve never could quite get enough of.

“What were you reminiscing about?” Tony asked eventually, as they were moving towards their bedroom.

Steve drew Tony closer by his waist and gave him a small, lopsided smirk.

“I was remembering the time we first met.”

“Why would you do that?” Tony groaned. “That was so embarrassing.”

“I think fondly of it.”

“Only you,” Tony muttered, but he was not serious. Instead, he seemed happy, and Steve was tempted to kiss that happy expression again. Tony liked to complain that their first meeting had been terribly embarrassing and not how a proper love story should ever begin, but to Steve, that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that Tony referred to their relationship as a love story. He never mentioned the other thing, the one thing that they were generally known for - that they had been the rebels who caused the Division in the first place. He refused to be spoken of as a hero, partly because, Steve knew, he felt guilty about all those people he had to leave behind, had to betray, even now. (Luckily, both Rhodey and Pepper had never parted from his side, which Steve himself was eternally grateful for.) But regardless of all the conflict his decisions caused, he always, always spoke of him and Steve as a love story. As if that was the thing that really mattered, to him.

And perhaps, that was true. Steve thought so to himself every night when he settled into bed next to Tony, when they fought, and when they figured out how to live a life that suited the needs of two different species. That was the part that was really important: their love story. The rest, well, that was just icing on the cake.

“Before I forget,” Steve said, pulling Tony closer to himself under the soft covers on their bed. “Bucky _graciously_ asks you stop using him as a test animal for your rune work. He says if you do that again, he’ll stop giving you his arm.”

Tony looked a little scandalised. “But all the improvements I made work perfectly!”

“Sure,” Steve laughed, “but I don’t think he appreciates you adding them without telling him first.”

“He’s a fool,” Tony grumbled. “Everyone else is grateful. Rhodey was positively excited the other day.”

“I know,” Steve soothed him. “Just tell him beforehand, next time.”

Tony still looked affronted, so Steve gently kissed Tony’s still-pouting lips.

“Try it,” he said, soothingly. “Good night, Tony.”

“Good night, Steve,” Tony replied. He closed his eyes, and almost immediately, he fell asleep.

 

_Good night._


End file.
